259 research outputs found

    The regulation of digital platforms: the case of pagoPA

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    How can EU regulation affect innovation. Digital revolution: How big data have changed the world and the legal landscape. The regulation of digital platforms in Europe. Digital revolution: How distributed ledger technologies are changing the world and the legal landscape. Regulation of digital payments: the case of pagopa

    Next Generation Business Ecosystems: Engineering Decentralized Markets, Self-Sovereign Identities and Tokenization

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    Digital transformation research increasingly shifts from studying information systems within organizations towards adopting an ecosystem perspective, where multiple actors co-create value. While digital platforms have become a ubiquitous phenomenon in consumer-facing industries, organizations remain cautious about fully embracing the ecosystem concept and sharing data with external partners. Concerns about the market power of platform orchestrators and ongoing discussions on privacy, individual empowerment, and digital sovereignty further complicate the widespread adoption of business ecosystems, particularly in the European Union. In this context, technological innovations in Web3, including blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies, have emerged as potential catalysts for disrupting centralized gatekeepers and enabling a strategic shift towards user-centric, privacy-oriented next-generation business ecosystems. However, existing research efforts focus on decentralizing interactions through distributed network topologies and open protocols lack theoretical convergence, resulting in a fragmented and complex landscape that inadequately addresses the challenges organizations face when transitioning to an ecosystem strategy that harnesses the potential of disintermediation. To address these gaps and successfully engineer next-generation business ecosystems, a comprehensive approach is needed that encompasses the technical design, economic models, and socio-technical dynamics. This dissertation aims to contribute to this endeavor by exploring the implications of Web3 technologies on digital innovation and transformation paths. Drawing on a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, it makes three overarching contributions: First, a conceptual perspective on \u27tokenization\u27 in markets clarifies its ambiguity and provides a unified understanding of the role in ecosystems. This perspective includes frameworks on: (a) technological; (b) economic; and (c) governance aspects of tokenization. Second, a design perspective on \u27decentralized marketplaces\u27 highlights the need for an integrated understanding of micro-structures, business structures, and IT infrastructures in blockchain-enabled marketplaces. This perspective includes: (a) an explorative literature review on design factors; (b) case studies and insights from practitioners to develop requirements and design principles; and (c) a design science project with an interface design prototype of blockchain-enabled marketplaces. Third, an economic perspective on \u27self-sovereign identities\u27 (SSI) as micro-structural elements of decentralized markets. This perspective includes: (a) value creation mechanisms and business aspects of strategic alliances governing SSI ecosystems; (b) business model characteristics adopted by organizations leveraging SSI; and (c) business model archetypes and a framework for SSI ecosystem engineering efforts. The dissertation concludes by discussing limitations as well as outlining potential avenues for future research. These include, amongst others, exploring the challenges of ecosystem bootstrapping in the absence of intermediaries, examining the make-or-join decision in ecosystem emergence, addressing the multidimensional complexity of Web3-enabled ecosystems, investigating incentive mechanisms for inter-organizational collaboration, understanding the role of trust in decentralized environments, and exploring varying degrees of decentralization with potential transition pathways

    Operational Technology Preparedness:A Risk-Based Safety Approach to Scoping Security Tests for Cyber Incident Response and Recovery

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    Following the advent of Industry 4.0, there have been significant benefits to industrial process optimisation through increased interconnectivity and the integration of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT). However, this has also led to an increased attack surface for cyber threat actors to target. A growing number of cyber attacks on industrial environments, including Critical National Infrastructure, has, subsequently, been observed. In response, government and standardisation organisations alike have invested considerable resources in improving the cyber security of these environments. This includes response and recovery, often used as a last line of defence against cyber attacks. However, due to the unique design philosophies of Industrial Control Systems (ICS), several challenges exist for effectively securing these systems against digital threats. Through an analysis of standards and guidelines, used for assessing and improving cyber incident response and recovery capabilities, and stakeholder engagement on the implementation of these in practice, this thesis first identifies the challenges that exist when it comes to preparing for cyber incidents targeting ICS/OT environments. In particular, risk management, which involves identifying, evaluating, and prioritising risks and finding solutions to minimise, monitor, and control these, was found to be essential for improving preparation for cyber incidents. Assurance techniques are used as part of risk management to generate evidence for making claims of assurances about security. Alongside this, adversary-centric security tests such as penetration tests are used to evaluate and improve cyber resilience and incident response capabilities by emulating the actions of malicious actors. However, despite the benefits that these provide, they are currently not implemented to their full potential due to the safety and operational risks that exist in ICS/OT environments. This thesis contributes to academic and industry knowledge by proposing a framework that incorporates methods for identifying and quantifying the safety and operational risks of conducting adversary-centric security tests within ICS/OT environments. In understanding the risks, these engagements can be scoped using precise constraints so as to maximise the depth of testing while minimising risk to safety and the operational process. The framework is then evaluated through a qualitative study involving industry experts, confirming the framework's validity for implementation in practice

    An Evaluation of Medication Safety related Communications in the Patient Healthcare Pathway in Kuwait

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    Background: Patient safety is a recognised public health issue. When post-market medication safety information emerges, the benefits and risks of the medication concerned are usually evaluated by drug regulatory agencies. The outcomes of such pharmacovigilance activities are communicated to the public, patients and other healthcare professionals (HCPs). The aim of these medication safety communications might vary from improving the intended recipients’ knowledge or attitudes to outlining specific actions to be followed by them. However, it is currently recognised that sharing medication-related information does not improve patients’ safety on its own if not accompanied by an accurate implementation of these recommendations in clinical practice. Despite their importance in protecting patient safety and subsequently affecting public health, no previous study was found to have evaluated or described the process of creating and disseminating medication safety communications by the Kuwaiti drug regulatory agency. Equally, no study was found to have investigated the impact of or the factors affecting the implementation of regulatory-related medication safety communications in Kuwait. Therefore, this thesis aimed to address these gaps in knowledge by evaluating medication safety communications in the patient healthcare pathway in Kuwait. Methods: This multiphase study was preceded by a systematic literature review of the factors affecting HCPs’ implementation of regulatory-related medication safety communications, using a narrative synthesis approach. Following the systematic review, multiphase research was initiated. This consisted of three phases, each of which focused on a specific stakeholder group involved in the process of medication safety communication. Phase 1 involved Kuwait Drug and Food Control (KDFC), an administration within the Ministry of Health (MOH), as the regulatory agency responsible for pharmacovigilance activities. This was a convergent mixed-methods study. Data collection in this phase included documents produced by KDFC or issued to KDFC relating to medication safety and three face-to-face interviews with KDFC employees involved in pharmacovigilance activities. Documents were analysed using a descriptive quantitative approach and a framework analysis technique. Phase 2 focused on healthcare professionals working in MOH hospitals in Kuwait. This phase was an exploratory mixed-methods study, where focus group discussions were conducted followed by the distribution of an online survey. The focus group discussions were analysed using a thematic analysis technique. In the second part of this phase, an online survey was developed based on Phase 1, the focus group discussions and the systematic literature review. Survey data analysis included descriptive analysis (frequency and percentile) and statistical analysis including principal component analysis (PCA) and the Kruskal–Wallis H test, which was followed by a post hoc analysis of variables that had significant results. Other statistical tests applied included Fisher’s exact test, the Mann–Whitney U Test, and multivariate regression analysis. Participants’ answers to open-ended survey questions were analysed using a conventional content analysis technique. Phase 3 was an interpretive phenomenology study. This phase involved semi-structured phone interviews with six female patients of childbearing age who used a valproate-related medication for epilepsy or migraine. These patients had been prescribed the valproate-related medication in one of six secondary hospitals and one specialist neurology hospital within the MOH hospitals. An interpretive phenomenological analysis technique was applied to analyse the transcripts. Results: The results of the systematic literature review indicated that the factors affecting HCPs’ implementation of medication safety communications occur at multiple levels. These levels included the sources or senders of the safety information (delays in the delivery of medications safety communications), healthcare institutions (hospitals’ position and interpretations of the recommendations), the HCPs (knowledge of the content of medications safety communications), and the patients and/or their carers (willingness to use the medication concerned). Phase 1 revealed a lack of legislation and a pharmacovigilance-specific policy. Results from Phase 2 reflected poor knowledge of the concept of medication safety communications within the context of pharmacovigilance and a lack of familiarity with the tools used by KDFC to communicate emerging medication information among HCPs. In the survey, although the majority of HCPs who responded were aware of the teratogenicity of VRM (65.1%, (n = 110/169)), only 2.6% had responded correctly to the statements of the VRM KDFC recommendations. More than half of the participants (57%) reported changing their practice to accommodate at least one intended KDFC recommendation. Providing female patients with written information (37.2%) and counselling female patients about contraceptive use (37.2%) were the most reported intended changes in practice. The most reported barriers to implementation included not having the capacity in terms of time and/or the infrastructure to implement the recommendations (33.8%). Four themes originating from patient interviews included (1) the timeline of the patient’s experience (2) varied knowledge and perception with valproate use, (3) patient’s expectations from HCPs and (4) experiences and preferences towards medication safety communications. Conclusion: Medication safety communications are essential tools for disseminating information related to medication safety updates to HCPs, patients and the public. This research identified challenges at the level of the sender (KDFC) and the intended recipients (HCPs and patients) that could reduce the ability of KDFC’s medication safety communications to reach clinical practices. The first step in increasing their reach is to adapt electronic methods for disseminating such information. Involving stakeholders, such as HCPs and patients, in evaluating the clarity and understandability of KDFC’s medication safety communications should be the focus of future research

    Digital writing technologies in higher education : theory, research, and practice

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    This open access book serves as a comprehensive guide to digital writing technology, featuring contributions from over 20 renowned researchers from various disciplines around the world. The book is designed to provide a state-of-the-art synthesis of the developments in digital writing in higher education, making it an essential resource for anyone interested in this rapidly evolving field. In the first part of the book, the authors offer an overview of the impact that digitalization has had on writing, covering more than 25 key technological innovations and their implications for writing practices and pedagogical uses. Drawing on these chapters, the second part of the book explores the theoretical underpinnings of digital writing technology such as writing and learning, writing quality, formulation support, writing and thinking, and writing processes. The authors provide insightful analysis on the impact of these developments and offer valuable insights into the future of writing. Overall, this book provides a cohesive and consistent theoretical view of the new realities of digital writing, complementing existing literature on the digitalization of writing. It is an essential resource for scholars, educators, and practitioners interested in the intersection of technology and writing

    A review of commercialisation mechanisms for carbon dioxide removal

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    The deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) needs to be scaled up to achieve net zero emission pledges. In this paper we survey the policy mechanisms currently in place globally to incentivise CDR, together with an estimate of what different mechanisms are paying per tonne of CDR, and how those costs are currently distributed. Incentive structures are grouped into three structures, market-based, public procurement, and fiscal mechanisms. We find the majority of mechanisms currently in operation are underresourced and pay too little to enable a portfolio of CDR that could support achievement of net zero. The majority of mechanisms are concentrated in market-based and fiscal structures, specifically carbon markets and subsidies. While not primarily motivated by CDR, mechanisms tend to support established afforestation and soil carbon sequestration methods. Mechanisms for geological CDR remain largely underdeveloped relative to the requirements of modelled net zero scenarios. Commercialisation pathways for CDR require suitable policies and markets throughout the projects development cycle. Discussion and investment in CDR has tended to focus on technology development. Our findings suggest that an equal or greater emphasis on policy innovation may be required if future requirements for CDR are to be met. This study can further support research and policy on the identification of incentive gaps and realistic potential for CDR globally

    Location Privacy in VANETs: Improved Chaff-Based CMIX and Privacy-Preserving End-to-End Communication

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    VANETs communication systems are technologies and defined policies that can be formed to enable ITS applications to provide road traffic efficacy, warning about such issues as environmental dangers, journey circumstances, and in the provision of infotainment that considerably enhance transportation safety and quality. The entities in VANETs, generally vehicles, form part of a massive network known as the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). The deployment of large-scale VANETs systems is impossible without ensuring that such systems are themselves are safe and secure, protecting the privacy of their users. There is a risk that cars might be hacked, or their sensors become defective, causing inaccurate information to be sent across the network. Consequently, the activities and credentials of participating vehicles should be held responsible and quickly broadcast throughout a vast VANETs, considering the accountability in the system. The openness of wireless communication means that an observer can eavesdrop on vehicular communication and gain access or otherwise deduce users' sensitive information, and perhaps profile vehicles based on numerous factors such as tracing their travels and the identification of their home/work locations. In order to protect the system from malicious or compromised entities, as well as to preserve user privacy, the goal is to achieve communication security, i.e., keep users' identities hidden from both the outside world and the security infrastructure and service providers. Being held accountable while still maintaining one's privacy is a difficult balancing act. This thesis explores novel solution paths to the above challenges by investigating the impact of low-density messaging to improve the security of vehicle communications and accomplish unlinkability in VANETs. This is achieved by proposing an improved chaff-based CMIX protocol that uses fake messages to increase density to mitigate tracking in this scenario. Recently, Christian \etall \cite{vaas2018nowhere} proposed a Chaff-based CMIX scheme that sends fake messages under the presumption low-density conditions to enhance vehicle privacy and confuse attackers. To accomplish full unlinkability, we first show the following security and privacy vulnerabilities in the Christian \etall scheme: linkability attacks outside the CMIX may occur due to deterministic data-sharing during the authentication phase (e.g., duplicate certificates for each communication). Adversaries may inject fake certificates, which breaks Cuckoo Filters' (CFs) updates authenticity, and the injection may be deniable. CMIX symmetric key leakage outside the coverage may occur. We propose a VPKI-based protocol to mitigate these issues. First, we use a modified version of Wang \etall's \cite{wang2019practical} scheme to provide mutual authentication without revealing the real identity. To this end, a vehicle's messages are signed with a different pseudo-identity “certificate”. Furthermore, the density is increased via the sending of fake messages during low traffic periods to provide unlinkability outside the mix-zone. Second, unlike Christian \etall's scheme, we use the Adaptive Cuckoo Filter (ACF) instead of CF to overcome the effects of false positives on the whole filter. Moreover, to prevent any alteration of the ACFs, only RUSs distribute the updates, and they sign the new fingerprints. Third, mutual authentication prevents any leakage from the mix zones' symmetric keys by generating a fresh one for each communication through a Diffie–Hellman key exchange. As a second main contribution of this thesis, we focus on the V2V communication without the interference of a Trusted Third Party (TTP)s in case this has been corrupted, destroyed, or is out of range. This thesis presents a new and efficient end-to-end anonymous key exchange protocol based on Yang \etall's \cite{yang2015self} self-blindable signatures. In our protocol, vehicles first privately blind their own private certificates for each communication outside the mix-zone and then compute an anonymous shared key based on zero-knowledge proof of knowledge (PoK). The efficiency comes from the fact that once the signatures are verified, the ephemeral values in the PoK are also used to compute a shared key through an authenticated Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol. Therefore, the protocol does not require any further external information to generate a shared key. Our protocol also does not require interfacing with the Roadside Units or Certificate Authorities, and hence can be securely run outside the mixed-zones. We demonstrate the security of our protocol in ideal/real simulation paradigms. Hence, our protocol achieves secure authentication, forward unlinkability, and accountability. Furthermore, the performance analysis shows that our protocol is more efficient in terms of computational and communications overheads compared to existing schemes.Kuwait Cultural Offic

    Ethical Evidence and Policymaking

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    EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This important book offers practical advice for using evidence and research in policymaking. The book has two aims. First, it builds a case for ethics and global values in research and knowledge exchange, and second, it examines specific policy areas and how evidence can guide practice. The book covers important policy areas including the GM debate, the environment, Black Lives Matter and COVID-19. Each chapter assesses the ethical challenges, the status of evidence in explaining or describing the issue and possible solutions to the problem. The book will enable policymakers and their advisors to seek evidence for their decisions from research that has been conducted ethically and with integrity
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